Press Release - For Immediate Release


Title:
     [PR-News] TheBest3D.com announces Project Dogwaffle PD Pro 5.1b  


Date:     San Diego, CA - December 29, 2010



TheBest3D.com has released a new version of Project Dogwaffle Professional, PD Pro 5.1b.

"This is a maintenance release to improve the installation experience", said Dan Ritchie, author of Project Dogwaffle, "but I also wanted to make a few more tools available for fellow animators. This update and the prior 5.1 release pack a load of new features for quickly creating animations and cartoons, and it's fun to create new textures with the new symmetry modes!".

 

 *** What's new in 5.1 / 5.1b

 * Zooming has been improved. There's now a zoom bar on the context strip. Also, zooming works a little different and more intuitively when the canvas is in a maximized state.

    * (for animators) Some bugs have been addressed in the exposure sheet that would cause a crash or unexpected behavior with stereo samples. Some of the new tools are also accessible through the exposure sheet: Audio recording, Frame painter

    * There are numerous new medias.

    * There are new options under the symmetry tool menu, which has been moved near to the pressure tools. The new options include mirror horizontal and vertical modes. These let you paint in real time while seeing a symmetrical mirror image. The new modes work with more than just drawing, so that you can do symmetrical effects on particles, and filters(!) too. This can be used to create amazing patterns for rugs and many 3D texturing uses.

    * We've done some fine tuning to the interface so things fit a little better on various screen sizes including wee little netbooks at 1024x600 and big O' screens of 1600x900 or so.

    * Particles and bristle brushes are now accessible from the media browser.

    * Windows positions are stored and retrieved for panels that are tacked, including the brush settings panel and particles panel.

    * There's now a media category for 'paint on alpha'

    * The program should provide a warning now if a high precision timer is not available for animation playback.

    * Included a newer LUA scripting just-in-time compiler.

    * There's a button for "brush preview". When using Custom (image based) brushes you now get a pretty good idea of where it's going to stamp down as you get ready to paint with it.

    * Smear mode (and paint smear mode) has been overhauled so it doesn't gradually get darker and darker.

    * More great new features(!) related to the Exposure Sheet for character animation and Lip Synching, audio recording and such.

    * Audio Recorder has been added to quickly record voice bits into Wave files. The audio recorder can be accessed from the plugins panel (Misc category) and also from the Mouth plugin (aka the Exposure sheet).

    * Frame Painter was added also to further support the creation of animations.  Frame painter works great with short anims, say just one or two frames, that you want to turn into longer animations such as dialogues. Imagine you have 3-4 frames of various poses from a speech or dialogue, and you convert this into a lively animation that is seconds long at 30fps. Plus, it makes your still frames come to life with automatic wiggle mode(!)

    * The exposure sheet has been updated. There is information about the project time and frame rate in the title bar.

    * The project time is used as the suggested number of frames for a new Frame Painter session.

    * When selecting a frame rate in the exposure sheet, there is now the option to use the rate in the main program too.

    * The frame rate selector in the main program has been updated cosmetically and with a "10 fps" option added.

    * The "Store/manage brush" option under the brush menu has had its panel updated.

    * Saving an AVI now uses the project frame rate by default.

    * Frame rate is settable from the anim creation panel.

    * You can now set the time in seconds for a new animation that you create.
 
    * Other miscellaneous fixes and enhancements.



 
 *** To learn more

Additional details on PD Pro 5.1b can be found here:
     http://thebest3d.com/pdpro5/updates/5.1b/whatsnewin51b.html

An example of Symmetry mode in action used with transform filters to create rug patterns can be seen here:
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVBMhV9R35w
     (sound track by DJ d'Artagnan)

For examples of animations created with the new frame painter, see "Cowboy Shorts" at
     http://thebest3d.com/pdpro5/tutorials/5.1Cowboy/cowboy_shorts_collection.html
 
Additional details on PD Pro 5.1 and sample images and tutorials can be found here:
     http://thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/whatsnew/5.1/index.html

For more details, image galleries, tutorials and animations, visit
     http://www.thebest3d.com/pdpro5




 *** Availability and Pricing

PD Pro 5 sells for $99. Upgrades from earlier versions of PD Pro as well as sidegrades from PD Particles and PD Artist are also available at significant discounts.



 *** Press Contacts

 For Press inquiries and to arrange a professional review please contact Philip Staiger:

 Web: http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/presszone
 email: admin(at)thebest3d(dot)com
 Phone: +1-858-208-7377


 *** Copyright & Trademarks
Project Dogwaffle is a trademark of Dan Ritchie. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners and are mentioned only for identification purposes.